I will agree with that. Tobias had some awesome backstories and expanded universe works. His original design for Shang Tsung was straight out of Big Trouble in Little China Lo Pen. I hate to make the comparision, but its George Lucas syndrome.

Tobias has cool and intricate backstories, but the overall execution of plot and characterization was stiff and "light vs darkness" I mean jesus christ the forces of light vs the forces of darkness. There is no multipe conflict in mortal kombat, it seems like all the other factions just politely wait for the two forces to duke it out and then give them a reprieve. Sure, it's the conflict presented in the story. Multiple sided conflicts end up messy and convoluted if not trimmed of excessive fat.

It's the high concepts that Tobias always impressed me with, but the small details and characterizations that Vogel imo fleshed out based on what Tobias intended from the start. MK4 wasn't awful in terms of plot, it was just underwhelming. Lack of technology and the way fighting games presented their stories had to be pieced together with the canon and the noncanon. Not overly difficult, but sometimes just seemed random and mysterious for no other reason. Like Reiko, he's surrounded in mystery.

It's a part of his charm and character, but the whole mysteriousness that comes with MK works for one or two games at the most. It gets tiring when some of the characters up till Armageddeon just randomly appeared or were cardboard cutouts.

Oh the irony... You're hating on John Vogel, yet you have Cyborg Subbie as your avatar - one of Vogel's creations...

Yeah, you're done with.

Let's be fair... Tobais had to leave his masterpiece behind and try to come up with something completely new that wouldn't resemble Mortal Kombat. How many of us can do something so great, and then try and come up with something just as great, if not greater? Not a lot of people. Not even the best writers in Hollywood can do that. Only a select few.

Vogel stepped in and built on something that was already created by Tobais, and it was well created. Any idiot fan in this forum can write a fan fiction based on Tobais' work. That's what Vogel has been doing. Taking somebody else's foundation and building up on it. Whoop dee fucking doo.

Shujinko? Taven? Give me a break... that was utter SHIT.

I'm not trying to bash Vogel like he's a incompetent twit, but I would much rather have them working together with Tobais as the LEAD writer.

Tobias might have started on it, but Vogel has made it his own.
And Tobias has yet to make anything good after he left Mortal Kombat.

John Tobias and John Vogel are both to be largely credited with creating the MK universe.

Tobias for creating it in the first place.

Vogel for just making it so much more than what it was.

Like I said, how many could actually do that?

Do you honestly think of Vogel left NRS, he'd be able to go start a new fighting game with a storyline that would surpass MK?

Come on.....

Yes, because he wouldn't have Ed Boon to veto his ideas.

So what's stopping him?

Maybe he LIKES to work with Ed Boon and the rest of the MK team?
Ever thought about that?

They probably haven't. lol

In other words you're assuming shit about Vogel's abilities without MK. He has no credentials and you have no proof that he can write his own story that would even be half of what MK is. Like I said, all he did was build on an already stable foundation. All thanks to TOBAIS.

You call it stable, I call it boring. Vogel brung life to the franchise and gave the characters persona. That's how I see it anyways.

I agree assasSINister, nothing has really changed under Vogel. Everything in this game is just going to be a rehash of old ideas of Tobias, with Vogel's spin. Anyone could do that.

At the end of the day, the Deadly Alliance, Dragon King, and Armageddon, were pointless stories. The whole point of MK (2011) is to undo Vogel stories from the last 3 three games, in a nutshell that says it all. After reading the endings and storyline of all the characters, there is going to be more of the same with a different spin, even after this game.

Well after playing Story Mode in MK2011, I can officially say:

"FUCK, Vogel really sucks."
(assuming it was all his idea)



Yes, Tobai's MK was just so boring... I guess it really WAS just the blood that made people fall in love with the MK series afterall, huh?.... for fuck's sake. You can call Tekken boring... or Dead or Alive boring... maybe even Soul Calibur. But MK? Give. Me. A. Break. Please.

After playing story mode, I can say this:

"It was ok. A good effort, but nothing special"

It's the best fighting game story mode to date, but there wasn't enough time to develop any of the characters really. You got a few of the main characters having some lose of crisis or character development here and there, but the last act(MK3) felt way too short. It was just straight from MKII to MK3.

I liked the dialogue, not the greatest I've heard but better than what you hear in most fighting games.

See this is my problem with Tobias, did he leave because he was forced out or was he just tired of working on Mortal Kombat? If it was because he was forced out then I'd say bring him back on board in some capacity. But if he left of his own volition, then he's done. It's like ghost writing. There can be ten names to a long lived series that write the plot all using one name.
I'm not saying Vogel's the best writer after playing storymode, hell I'd prefer someone who knew how to pace stories properly to write it.

The problem with Tobias is the same problem Vogel. The first three MK games were a pretty bitching trilogy, but after that it's like "LOL MK4?" MK4 sucked plain and simple. The plot was underwhelming and there was a vague sense of disconnect with the overall plot. The comic story was cool see, but it's like John lost gas after that.

And don't tell me he'd come up with anything better than MK1-3. He created MK along with Boon for their love of mythology and 70s kungfu films. Really that's it. It's not some deep story with complex characters. It's a story that while epic is filled with some decent plot and otherwise style over substance storylines.

If Tobias had written MK2011, it'd be a straight rehash patchworked together from various MK1-3 endings.

This is the low point in Mortal Kombat, lore wise, for me. That's a pretty difficult title to have wrenched considering how I hated Armageddon and how bad Special Forces is, but both of those games ended up making more sense longterm than this one does.

I don't know how to feel. Vogel did such an amazing job recapturing the MK story for Deadly Alliance, which is one of the best pieces of work story wise of any fighting game. I think it's far and above anything else. Deception was serviceable and not really that bad. It had some bad pieces to it, such as some of the new characters and some of the returning ones, but overall it wasn't a completely ruined story. This one is. This is a completely ruined story that I no longer care about. Either way, it's awful. Really ashamed to say I ever gave a crap about this story.

I don't consider any of this "spoilers" anymore because the game is out in most locations. Oh, and Tobias is no better. You don't want generic? You certainly don't want John Tobias, then.

No one really knows why Tobias left Midway. I think, I read an article back on ign.com in the early 2000, saying that he felt his time at Midway had past. I find it amazing that so many people underrat John Tobias. Fact: He created the backstories and core mythology, of the series.

Tobias doesn't have the same problems with Vogel. You see , Tobias is a storyteller, by talent. Tobias has a comic book background, unlike Vogel. MK4 wasn’t a bad game from a storytelling point of view. Keep in mind that both Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat mythologies were worked on at the same time. So it isn’t like Tobias focused on one game.

People keep on forgetting that Mortal Kombat 1 to Mortal Kombat 4 were arcade games design to be arcade games. They weren’t console games , that focused on different aspects of “bonus modes” or even time to give a deep story.

” Tobias had written MK2011, it'd be a straight rehash patchworked together from various MK1-3 endings”

When did Tobias ever rehash anything as far as plot in any of his games? Not in MK1- MK4. If anything MK4 ended many plots from MK1- MK3 era. Who knows what direction Tobias had the series after MK4. In fact, the reason why Mortal Kombat 9 is a reboot is because the current writers COULDN”T think of anything new.

After the lame story, in MK9, I would hope that John Tobias would return to the MK team. This would compete MK, as it was back during the MK1-MK4. The MK mythology , hasn’t expanded at all without him.

Tobias is an artist first, writer second. And you took my quote of context, no big deal though.

What I meant was do you honestly think John would write anything other than a straight retelling of MK1-3. The same story told roughly fifteen years ago in MK's heyday? I doubt it. I hate going back to Tao Feng, but people need to realize that every writer usually has one great idea that sells well, but then the rest of what they make turns to well shit for lack of a better word. I liked Tao Feng's backstory at the time, but the characters and gameplay were just scatter brain it made my me cringe for him. I have no idea what he's been doing in the meantime. He did the MKvsDC artwork for the comic, that's about it. From what info I've gathered, he's some kind of consultant in the game industry still. What he's done? I'm clueless with that regard.

You're right. I can forgive the fact that the arcade endings made it a pain in the ass to tell what was canon and what wasn't back in the day. It's not an excuse for MK4. Again, great prelude and tie-in, but the story in MK4 was underwhelming. The stories were just as vague and getting tired at that point. Scorpion still hunting Sub-Zero, Tanya's random ass ending, Shinnok being displayed as a doofus. It's just ineffectual characterization.

I'm not asking for a thespian to write the magnum opus of fighting games where the characters internalize their aniexties or fears. I'm asking for decent dialogue, a coherent plot, and a generally fun experience.

In my opinion, I wouldn't play John's MK storyline because of that fact I never want to revisit that part of MK's history. It's great for nostaglia and how far the franchise has come, but Vogel or Tobias, it's either a straight retelling that'd tie into MK4 or we get Vogel's more grim dark setting. I'll take Vogel.

The thing I realized is I'm not trying to make you see the light or something like that. Some people like Tobias's stories, other's like Vogel. I like Vogel's. You like Tobias. It's MK's plot eitherway.

Never mind

Whats good with the MK4 bashing?

I actually think that John Vogel is capable of having some good stories. He took the things with Sareena's and Frost's appearances in MK: Armageddon's Konquest mode and turned them into solid stories. Sareena's bio was pretty much perfect, and it captured her character well. MK: Deadly Alliance was one of the big high points in MK's story, maybe even THE highest point.

With the story of the new game, the overall story reaches its lowest point. Either John Vogel got shafted or he snapped and stopped truly caring about the story after being cockblocked from releasing the rest of the MK: Armageddon bios online. I'm pretty disappointed in the story and feel bitter about it, because MK still has massive potential for great storytelling, at least for a fighting game series. When it comes to the series' story, I'm much more interested in what Kevin Tancharoen has planned for Mortal Kombat: Legacy.

If Tobias was in charge of the story he probably would have taken it in a different direction, why? Because after so many years you see plot holes and a history that in some cases didn't work. you would retell a lot and make vast different changes.

MK9 is very very disappointing for me. This is one of the reasons I cared for the title, a retelling/change of history.

I loved MK1to3 for the Chinese like movie style. Our fighter vs an world thats wants ours for their own. Now they just went to far.
They could have changed so many things in the storyline but only at the end they choose to change up a few things. A lot of things that will be undone in the next title.

I loved it more when the title was more simple like that.
Now we have too many things in the title:
vampires,
Werewolves (ladder ending for a character),
ghost in the computer/shell (ladder ending for a character),
Aliens Tartakens
Aliens Reptile folk
Shokans (now with tiger fur)
Centaurs
Gods
Demons
Oni
Dead people resurrecting every title
Robots

It just gets to much.

MK1 to 3 was perfect for me. Still fighting the battle and characters had a nice story to go by.

Its just a big mess now from which they cant return anymore.

And yet...Somehow...Life goes on.